The law on cannabis has been altered recently. Are there any other offences on the statute book that could be downgraded to reflect modern attitudes and free up police time? Prostitution, say? The government is conducting a review of prostitution that will consider the legal framework and the need for change in this area. We must remember that prostitution is not a victimless crime. At this stage decriminalisation is an unlikely outcome of the review, as it would offer local communities no protection from the harassment, alarm and distress often caused by those soliciting and kerb-crawling in residential areas.
Prostitution also has clear links with drugs and organised crime.
We know that the chance of being a victim of crime is the lowest for 20 years but crime remains a big concern for many people. Is it your job to counter that? We are committed to reducing the levels of fear of crime. We are addressing the misperceptions about crime by promoting the facts of crime levels and common sense precautions that individuals can take to prevent themselves becoming a victim. The Home Office is working with other government departments, crime and disorder reduction partners, and charity and voluntary organisations to find new ways of tackling fear. This is in addition to its wide range of crime reduction programmes being delivered locally.
A fear of crime toolkit was published on the Home Office crime reduction website in May 2003 to aid in further dissemination of this message, as well as to provide best practice to all practitioners who are working towards reducing fear of crime within communities and vulnerable groups.
I strongly support initiatives that get different generations together – young and old – to discuss crime. That’s one way to break down the barriers of fear.
Should we be looking to extend the gated community model to poorer neighbourhoods? No. Gates are one tool that communities can use to tackle anti-social behaviour. They will be appropriate in some areas and not in others. Our ‘Gate-It’ scheme, to be launched shortly, will fund environmental improvements like lighting and landscaping as well as gates.
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Alley gating, at the back of rows of terraced houses, has proved very successful, and popular with residents.
Do we have all the right mechanisms in place to make the police accountable to local communities and the local community representatives for disorder in their area?
We want to explore ways of strengthening the accountability of policing in England and Wales. This is at the heart of the consultation paper on further police reform we published last November. I hope that Labour party members and Progress readers take part in the consultation – we need your views.
The broad vision for further reform is this: the development of a modernised, truly representative service delivering core national standards of policing to all communities – but within a framework that enables forces to be responsive to local priorities. We want to clarify and strengthen accountability arrangements for the police service itself, police authorities and the work of other partners involved in helping keep communities safe.
We want local people to have a genuine opportunity to have a real say in how their communities are policed. We want to move beyond traditional notions of policing by consent to policing with the active co-operation of the public. This might mean a range of greater community involvement in the running and direction of your local police.
Do you have sufficient control over policing to match the accountability the press and the electorate expect from you? It’s not an issue of control. Political independence of policing in this country is something we must not lose. It is absolutely vital for public confidence.
But we do want to clarify and strengthen the existing accountability arrangements, so that the public is clear about who is responsible for what in terms of policing. In seeking to clarify these arrangements, we are not seeking to interfere in operational decisions, which are the right and duty of chief police officers to take. But we are similarly clear that chief officers and their forces should be accountable, and be seen to be accountable, to the communities they serve. So that is why we want to focus on the notion of the operational responsibility of chief officers – an important concept.
The police service is never included with other public services when the government talks about reform. Is that because it operates perfectly, or because police reform is a ‘third rail’ issue in our politics: too hot to touch? Public services cannot stand still. The police service is no exception – and it recognises this itself. The government has been engaged in a sustained programme of police reform, which is delivering real successes. Police officer numbers are historically high and the chance of being a victim of crime is historically low. A performance culture is embedding itself in the service. Improvements in technology are showing results.
We want to build on these successes. Our forward reform agenda isn’t an exercise in service bashing. It is about maximising the impact and effectiveness of the jobs the police and their local and national partners do.The work of the police service reflects the core values of policing in this country: independent and non-political, reflecting an ethos of public service, not social control. It’s this ability to embrace change, coupled with the enduring values of British policing on which we want to build, that makes us confident about the success of the future reform agenda. We want ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ to be more than a slogan – it encapsulates the socialist approach to tackling crime.